Brazil had not passed from tie before England in their second match of the group stage of the world Cup from 1958 and everything was at stake before the fearsome Soviet Union, in the last meeting of the first phase. Different technical and psychological reports had advised against to the coach of Rio de Janeiro (Vicente Feola) the alignment of two young boys They were waiting for their first opportunity in the tournament.
It was the day before playing against USSR that the wardrobe chiefs of the Brazilian team met with Feola to advise otherwise to what the reports said: “We want play the two new. They are extraordinary, “said the captain. And Feola hung her head and decided align them. And it was so, with this kind of mutiny, how the world history of Pele and of Garrincha.
And the beginning knows no precedents: three minutes of the match against the Soviets, Brazil had already scored a goal and thrown twice to the sticks (once by Pelé and once by Garrincha). Brazil won that match and two weeks later he won his first world cup. And that couple was invincible: Pelé and Garrincha NEVER LOST playing together for Seleçao (36 wins and 4 draws in 40 games). In fact Garrincha only suffered a defeat with Brazil and it was in his last match as an international in which Pelé was unable to play because of an injury (Hungary 3-1 Brazil, July 15, 1966).
A unique goal
One of the most memorable matches in the history of the World Cup was played on June 5, 1938 in The Meinau (Strasbourg) and faced Brazil already Poland. It was the first meeting in which they scored at least ten goals and in it that the first world cup poker in charge of Ernest Wilimowski, who made two goals in six minutes to balance a 3-1 against and led the game to extra time (in which he also scored) after scoring the 4-4 in the 89th minute.
But that game also went down in history because it was the first (then there has only been one more) in which two rival players they scored a hat-trick, since to Wilimowski's four goals we must add the three he scored Leônidas da Silva. And of those three goals from the Brazilian star, I want to tell you about the second because it is a unique case and unrepeatable in the history of the World Cup. In the second half of the game he started raining hard and the terrain became almost impassable. In fact, in an action in the first part of the extension, Leônidas sank one of his feet in the mud and when he pulled it out smashed the sole of his boot. He quickly went to the band to fix the problem, but nobody found the solution and the game was not to lose a player as well.
The Black Diamond, As they nicknamed him, he decided to fix it his way and took off both boots, the broken and the not broken, and so returned to the field. There was so much mud on the players' shoes and socks that the referee Ivan Eklind did not notice that there was a completely barefoot man on the field of play (something expressly prohibited by the regulations) and it was precisely that footballer, the great Leônidas, who made the first goal of extra time. A goal that is and will be, for ever and ever, the only scored by a player without a boots in the history of the World Cup. By the way, Brazil won 6-5 and went to the quarterfinals.